Fiat News: Sergio Marchionne Looks For A New Partner to Join FCA

[William Maley]

Sergio Marchionne is planning on stepping down as head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2018. But before he says good-bye, he wants to do one more big deal to help plug up holes in FCA and expand into other markets.

Reuters reports that Marchionne has been putting out feelers for the past year to try and jumpstart consolidation in the industry to help share costs and bring out new technologies. But an alliance would help FCA as they have one the largest piles of debt in the industry, along with a number of other problems such as an over-reliance on a North American market and missing a good amount of the Asian marketplace.

"The U.S. is where FCA is focusing now. Marchionne is doing a lot of work on his last deal and something will happen before 2018." said a source to Reuters.

Several sources say Marchionne and the Agnelli family - the founders of Fiat - have their eyes on General Motors as they have a strong presence in both the U.S. and Asia. Also, GM wants to get back on the right track in Europe after the mess with PSA Peugeot Citroen went no where. But a source at a U.S. bank says GM isn't interested.

This isn't the first time that FCA has put feelers out. Last year, there were reports of FCA speaking with both PSA Peugeot Citroen and Volkswagen. These reports were denied.

Source: Reuters

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[G. David Felt]

The Next Big Bankrupt Auto Company! They should be stopping R&D on dead brands or trying to revive them and focus on what they have. This will destroy many lives if they do go bankrupt again.

[smk4565]

A merger with GM could work.  GM has no minivan, so that would be easy to slide the Town and Country to Chevy and/or Buick.  The Chrysler brand could be killed off.

 

Dodge gives that cheap performance brand, and Dart, Charger, Challenger is enough really, as Chevy would have the other sedans.

 

Jeep sells and makes profit, no need to mess with what works.

 

GMC truck could be killed off because they have Ram trucks, and Ram is different than Chevy.

 

Cadillac could share some stuff with Alfa Romeo and Maserati to make a luxury trio.

 

I think Ferdinand Piech should buy 25% of the FCA stock, and merge them with VW to make his super auto union.  It would be a much better feather in his cap than the failed Phaeton.

[G. David Felt]

A merger with GM could work.  GM has no minivan, so that would be easy to slide the Town and Country to Chevy and/or Buick.  The Chrysler brand could be killed off.

 

Dodge gives that cheap performance brand, and Dart, Charger, Challenger is enough really, as Chevy would have the other sedans.

 

Jeep sells and makes profit, no need to mess with what works.

 

GMC truck could be killed off because they have Ram trucks, and Ram is different than Chevy.

 

Cadillac could share some stuff with Alfa Romeo and Maserati to make a luxury trio.

 

I think Ferdinand Piech should buy 25% of the FCA stock, and merge them with VW to make his super auto union.  It would be a much better feather in his cap than the failed Phaeton.

Why take on a debt ridden company that is poorly managed and clearly only has a few things of value that does not justify the cost to get.

 

Yet since Common Sense is not Common some people will look at this as a good idea to a point.

 

I agree that Chrysler could have their product line of the few things, mainly the Minivan rolled into Chevy and you kill Chrysler.

Dodge should be merged into GMC / Buick / Dodge. Dodge becoming their performance line.

Ram is sold off to recapture spent money to a company that wants to get into the US market for trucks. Mercedes Benze should buy them as it would be a superior truck line than NissaBenze could do.

Jeep would be GM's stand alone 4x4 offroad group.

Cadillac and Maserati become their dual Luxury line, Kill off the stupid Alfa once and for all and stop wasting money on it. It is a History Foot note.

[smk4565]

The Agnelli family may want to keep Maserati, they surely want to keep Ferrari.  Even still, Ram sells a lot of trucks and they have a good diesel.  Jeep is the jewel.

 

VW could do well with FCA because WV isn't truck or SUV heavy, Jeep doesn't compete right now with VW or Audi products.  They could merge their compact car platforms into one to save money, that is where their margins are bad.

[Drew Dowdell]

Suzuki, Mazda, or Mitsubishi.... they have experience, somewhere inside the FCA mothership, of working with each of them already. 

 

FCA needs better 4-cylinders, Mazda has them. Mazda needs better V6es, Chrysler has them. 

Suzuki is big in Asian markets and could likely team up for smaller turbo4s, AWD systems, and possibly small car platforms.

 

Mitsubishi just needs help...

[smk4565]

I think Marchionne wants to sell the company, probably would be a good pay out for him.  Mazda and those little guys don't have that much cash, Mazda has $3 billion cash on hand.  VW on the other hand has $31 billion of cash, plus Piech is worth over $5 billion, although I imagine most of that is his 10% of Porsche, I don't know how much cash he could raise to buy in.  VW could buy out FCA and take ownership.

[FAPTurbo]

FIAT/Chrysler and VW pairing up would create a sh*t sandwich of monumental unreliability. 

 

It'd be the best thing ever. 

[G. David Felt]

Hopefully causing the weak auto's to go away for ever.